The Night the Photographs Changed at the Cattail Motel

June 1994. Route 17, just outside of Shiloh County. The Cattail Motel was a faded brick horseshoe with a flickering vacancy sign and a pool that had been drained since the mid-eighties. I stopped there because my headlights caught a shape in the rain — a woman standing at the edge of the gravel lot, not moving, not blinking. By the time I pulled into the parking spot, she was gone. But the room they gave me — Room 9 — had a framed photograph on the nightstand. A woman in a yellow dress, standing in tall grass. Her face was blurred, like the camera had moved. I didn't think much of it until the next morning, when I woke to find the photograph had changed. The grass was bent. The yellow dress was torn at the hem. And the woman's face — it was still blurred, but her mouth was open now. Wide open. I told the desk clerk. He just said, 'That's why we don't put guests in Room 9.' He didn't explain. He didn't refund my money. He just handed me a new key and told me to leave before dark. I didn't take the photograph. But I did take a picture of it, with my disposable camera. And when I had it developed, the woman from the frame was standing behind me in the reflection of the nightstand mirror. That was thirteen years ago. I still have that print. I still check it, every few months. The woman is still there. But she's closer to the camera now. #CattailMotel #Route17 #ShilohCounty #Room9 #YellowDress #Photograph #DisposableCamera #Nightstand #Mirror #June1994 #Rain #WomanInTheGrass #BlurredFace #MotelHorror #DarkRoads #LunaReads #FexingoHorror #HorrorPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo